It's (usually) more complicated than that

Aug 29, 2011

The personal is political

Everything you do, everything I do, has political implications. Let me walk you through a few of them.

My political decisions this average Friday begin when I roll out of bed and stand, bleary-eyed, staring at my dresser. Fridays are casual dress days at my workplace, so I have my choice of T-shirts and jeans. Kathy C (names changed to protect the innocent) has been tweaking my nose about being too shy to greet people, and it'd be fun to tweak back, so I want to wear my ThinkGeek "You read my T-shirt. That's enough social interaction for one day" tee. I can't find it, though, so I consider my "Church of Castiel" tee before deciding not enough people at work are likely to know Supernatural for it to be worth it. I have, however, found my "HI" tee, which works for the original plan of amusing Kathy C. I pair it with a denim skirt and silver earrings.

Already I've made four political decisions. One, to wear estadounidense-made clothing and jewelry; the Hawaii shirt says on the tag that it was made in the USA of imported fabric, and the earrings were made by an Etsy member in California. Two, to wear clothing made in Bangladesh, undoubtedly by people making a few dollars a day, and three, to wear clothing bought at Goodwill; that's where the skirt came from. I didn't think to check the skirt's origin when I bought it. I don't know if I would have bought it had I known. Probably. My "Church of Castiel" tee was made in Pakistan.

Four, and this is the only one that looks from the outside like a political decision, to support peace in the Middle East. The earrings say "peace", "שָׁלוֹם", "سَلاَم".

(No one comments on the earrings all day.)

In the bathroom I make more political decisions. One is to buck notions of feminine beauty by declining to wear makeup. I'm so accustomed to making this decision that I don't even keep makeup in the bathroom. I do shave my underarms regularly, and that is a political decision as well. Beauty standards continue to have power over me. Also, I have my period. I don't go for the environmentally friendly Diva Cup or what have you, since I haven't even got the hang of tampons, nor do I use cloths to absorb the flow, though I could, since we have a stash of 'bubble cloths' (formerly cloth diapers, now used for everything under the sun). No, it's disposable pads, for cheapness and convenience. I can stash two more pads in my purse and be set for the day.

I've overslept, so I don't have time for my usual morning routine of watching the previous evening's Rachel Maddow, Jon Stewart, and Stephen Colbert while I check my email and newsreaders and play Echo Bazaar. These political decisions are obvious as such, because the blogs I follow on Google Reader and Dreamwidth tend to be liberal or progressive by U.S. standards, as Maddow and Stewart are and Colbert pretends not to be. ("Reality has a well-known liberal bias.") Echo Bazaar is political as well: "There are people walking around with the faces of squid—squid—and you have the nerve to ask me my gender?" is one of the gender options at the start of the game, and gender affects game play not at all; people of any gender can seduce people of either gender or both. The NPCs are racially diverse and the PC is whatever race one chooses, as the PC is only ever seen in silhouette. Contrast, for example, Sryth, where there are only two genders available and it's just assumed that the character is white. I haven't played enough Sryth to know whether sexuality comes into play.

I keep meaning to include yoga in my morning routine, but that runs into a few problems. One, I'm sleepy in the mornings. Two, is it cultural appropriation, perhaps with a side of veiled racism? Three, I have orthostatic hypotension, and attempting a sun salutation tends to leave me dizzy. I don't care to spend another six hours in the emergency room while they work out that it was just low blood pressure that caused me to pass out in the first place.

Last night's leftovers were all claimed by my brother, not that I liked it all that much anyway, and I don't have any lunches stashed in the fridge, so I grab a Maruchan Ramen microwavable meal and hop in the car. Locavore food it ain't; Maruchan has three manufacturing plants, two in California and one in Virginia, and there's no way of knowing which produced this meal. The relevant point is, it only cost me a dollar ten. I'd rather be eating spaghetti and tomato sauce from the night before last, partly because it tastes better and partly because the tomatoes were picked about ten minutes before they were cooked, but none of that survived the stampeding hordes otherwise known as my siblings.

As I drive to work, I stop at the Royal Farms for an iced vanilla latte. It comes in a glass bottle I never recycle, because I know of no recycle bins at work for anything other than paper products. (Bobbi Jo says we work in a paperless office, and we all laugh. I go through half a ream a day, and that's just what's getting express-mailed out to our customers.) I feel guilty about not recycling, because it's that much more unnecessarily in a landfill, but not guilty enough to switch to the much cheaper and much less appealing coffee that lives in a pot by my desk, nor guilty enough to learn how to operate a coffee pot myself so I can make my own iced lattes.

I note that the Valero and the Royal Farms both have gas at $3.659 a gallon, and my car is under half a tank with more than fifty dollars in my checking account. I'll get gas on the way home.

At work, the only political decision I make is whether to speak up when Bobbi Jo gripes that night shift only fills up the printers because they want the Box Tops. (General Mills puts Box Tops for Education on everything, boxes and otherwise, including the paper that goes in our printers, and pays schools something like five or ten cents for every Box Top the school mails to General Mills.) I don't say anything, mostly because someone distracts her with a question before I've formulated mine, but next time there will by FSM be a discussion, or at least a rant session, about why US schools are funded so poorly that they have to collect Box Tops in order to pay for necessities.

Working where I do, though, might be a political decision in itself, were it not for the fact that it was literally the only place I could find willing to hire someone with my pathetic résumé: I work for the state government. To quote Ann Coulter: "No, it's worse than not having a job, having a government job, because you have somebody doing something nobody wants, taxpayers pay for it, and they can never get rid of them." Well, I'm easily gotten rid of, because I'm not a full-time employee (though I have full-time hours), but somebody has to do my job. I stuff envelopes all day long, and people pay quite a bit to file or to get copies of the papers that go in those envelopes. But I'm part of a revenue-generating division that operates, I'm told, "like a business", so I suspect I'm not who Coulter is railing against. I would explain why the various functions of local, state, and federal government are in fact vital, but that's beyond the scope of this essay.

Before heading home, I call the local contemporary hits station with a request for the five o'clock free-for-all: Lady Gaga's "Born This Way". That's political too, given the song's pro-queer message, but it's also that I love the song. The DJ doesn't play it, though, having played Gaga too recently, and I consider asking for Katy Perry's "I Kissed a Girl" again. I hang up without making a second request, since I asked for that Katy Perry song yesterday.

I consider heading out to the mall Waldenbooks, since it's closing, but decide against it. Borders, going out of business or otherwise, is part of the force causing independent bookstores to shut down, and I therefore shouldn't support Borders. I've also already spent my book budget for the month.

I consider also heading to Walmart. I'm running low on candy, and this Walmart has eight Reese's or small Kit Kats or small Hershey's Dark for a dollar. But, well, Walmart. They discriminate against their female employees, no matter what Justice Scalia thinks; they purchase from manufacturers who pay their employees a few dollars a day at most. And Hershey. Reese's and Kit Kats are made by Hershey, which company does little to purchase fair-trade chocolate. The cacao that went into the Kit Kat I ate as I type this was probably grown by child laborers. I could eat something made by Nestlé instead, but they have a history of unethically sourced beans, not to mention a history of aggressively marketing formula over breastmilk in developing countries where there's neither the funds nor the facilities to sterilize—leading to who knows how many dead babies.

I do visit the AC Moore, because I'm running low on glass pearls and other sparkly things to make into shinies for my Etsy store. I don't even think to check the origin of the sparklies I buy, and that too is a political decision. (They're all made in China. Every last one.)

When I approach the Royal Farms, I see that gas is at $3.639. Score! I turn into the station, hoping the Valero won't be at $3.629; I find out in a few minutes that it's not (and on Sunday that the Royal Farms and Valero are both at $3.599; I can't win). I prefer the Royal Farms to the Valero, because Valero is a Fortune 500 oil company and Royal Farms is a local convenience store chain usually with gas stations attached, and supporting Royal Farms over Valero gives me the illusion of supporting small business over Big Oil. It's an illusion because gasoline is a fungible commodity. For all I know, the gas I buy at Royal Farms was processed by ExxonMobil from oil bought from Saudi Arabia.

At home, it's time for weekend chores. Mine is cleaning bathrooms. Joy. Vinegar for the easy surfaces. Windex for the mirrors and toilet bowl cleaner for the toilets and calcium-lime-and-rust remover for the bathtub, not that I bother with the bathtub today because the only way anyone will know I've cleaned the bathtub is if I knock over the shampoo rack trying to clean behind it. All three claim on the label to be environmentally friendly products, but FSM alone knows what gets into the water when I rinse them away. And I scrub with paper towels, not bubble cloths, because it's not worth my time to figure out which laundry basket has bubble cloths.

As Montgomery Gentry says, I'm a product of the 'me' generation. I want what I want when I want it and I don't give care what it takes to get me what I want. I want to wear cheap clothing, I want to eat cheap chocolate, I want to use cheap jewelry supplies, so I buy inexpensive clothing and jewelry supplies and chocolate without caring about the human cost. Without even looking to see if there is a human cost. I collect General Mills Box Tops to send in to my sister's elementary school in lieu of actually donating to that school or finding a way to make sure the school is properly funded without donations. I have to get to work, so I buy gasoline, and I have no way of knowing whether the money from that purchase funds wars. I'm not sure I have a right to care, there, because I pay taxes, and I know damn well that money funds wars. I make a silent statement that I support peace in the Middle East instead of doing anything that promotes peace in the Middle East. I'd rather hurt the planet than find somewhere to recycle a damn bottle.

Half of it comes down to the almighty dollar and how few almighty dollars I have. The rest boils down to, I just. Don't. Care.

I could care. I should care. I would care, if it didn't inconvenience me to do so.

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58 Comments

Love this. I don't even try to do my best anymore; it's too exhausting. I give myself points for buying LEGO, Erector Sets, and video games at the local toy stores instead of Wal-Mart. Also, I buy toilet paper at Costco. I'm still Part of the Problem.

"Half of it comes down to the almighty dollar and how few almighty dollars I have. The rest boils down to, I just. Don't. Care.

You know, I often what role the rampant cynicism in American society plays in that, too. When you see no good in things, in people, and in the government/organizations (private and public) and believe that nothing you do can change anything, I wonder if it bleeds backwards into a self-fulfilling prophecy. You don't do anything about them so they become corrupt because you didn't make your voice heard to stop it, thus reinforced your opinion that they were corrupt all along. If you expect the worst, maybe that's all you see. And when all you see is the worst, what good does it do to try and change it?

I'm reminded of my friend. He won't vote. He doesn't vote, as a conscious choice, because he claims that both parties are just as bad. At the same time, he does nothing to try and change it, either. He sits back and doesn't do much of anything. I know he can't be alone.

To quote Ann Coulter: "No, it's worse than not having a job, having a government job, because you have somebody doing something nobody wants, taxpayers pay for it, and they can never get rid of them."

Yeah, nobody wants pumping stations to keep their homes and businesses from flooding, or the ports through which those cheap consumer goods from other countries are shipped to be maintained or the roads on which they are transported to be built, so my husband spent thirty years doing jobs no one wanted done. I for one am willing to believe Ms. Coulter grows her own food, and makes her own clothing from wool she spins from her own sheep. And that she never, ever, takes medicine that's been vetted by the FDA. Or drives on an interstate. Or flies in a plane, because she'd be relying on air traffic controllers to make sure she lands safely. And of course, if her house catches fire, she has some arrangement with a private company to put the fire out.

And she certainly doesn't want the USCIS keeping illegal immigrants out of the country, no sir. That's what private militias are for, I guess.

The piece of the analysis that I think is partially missing here, and that is missing from most analysis of rich-country citizens' failure to make politically responsible choices, is time.

Time is a limited resource, probably the most severely limited resource in most Westerners' lives. Researching every consumer choice we make takes time that most of us don't have. Often, making more responsible choices (such as stopping on the way to work to put the latte cup in recycling) takes time we don't have. Additionally, those who have the financial means to make politically responsible choices are the least likely to have the time to do so. If you have a high-paying job, you're probably on a salary, which means your boss can legally make you work as many hours as zie wants, or give you assignments that take as many hours as possible. If you have a job with shorter hours, or no job at all, you may have the time to do things like finding fair trade chocolate manufacturers, but you probably don't have the money to not shop at Wal-Mart.

Furthermore, we have so many consumer products available to us that most of us don't even know how to make a choice that isn't based on convenience. We're psychologically paralyzed by all the options. We also don't know where to look for reliable information on which choices are most responsible. Most information resource creators have their own agendas. Different websites and books say different things. It's hard to know who to trust when everyone is selling something, whether it's a product or an idea. Plus, when you add up all the products each person uses in a day and all the options to choose from, there's just too much out there for us to inform ourselves about all of it.

Yes, we do make bad choices based on convenience. But there are reasons for that that don't just boil down to lack of moral fibre.

I grow some of my own food and bike to most social engagements unless I'm carrying food- at least till recently, when I hurt my knee and have been driving to absolutely everything. I get most of my clothes from Goodwill- except for shorts and frequently pants, of which I have great difficulty finding thrift-store options that fit. I wear a diamond engagement ring which has a center diamond that is recycled, but which has other diamonds in the setting that aren't. I would love to buy all-organic, locally grown, free range meats, or to go vegetarian because we can't afford said meats- but my husband is working out constantly and needs more protein than he can easily get in a vegetarian diet (and he just doesn't like tofu that much). I buy most of the fruits and veggies that I don't grow myself from the farmer's market- unless they didn't have it there, so I get it at Wegman's, where it may or may not have been grown in the States, much less in the next town over.

The way I've thought about it is this. There are choices that I can, and do, make that are environmentally conscious and politically sound- most of the time. I don't eat at Chik-Fil-A anymore by choice, unless that's the decision in a group car where I'm getting a ride somewhere. I don't shop at Walmart unless there isn't another choice. I'm not willing to go hungry or go without, which makes me a "bad" boycotter. But I can only do as much as I can do.

You can't change everything at once. A lot of being environmentally/politically conscious is setting up new habits which take time to form. It sounds stupid, but if you want to change, allowing time for new habits to settle in is essential. I go straight for the Green & Black's or the Chocolove, if I want chocolate- that's my automatic habit at this point. I go to Goodwill before I go anywhere else for clothes. Eventually, when we have a chest freezer, I will buy my beef by the quarter cow from a local farmer who free-ranges his beef and doesn't give them antibiotics they don't need- or even better, find a hunter who has too many deer and take one off their hands- and then there will be my beef/meat for the next year. As kisekileia said, half our problem is too many choices- take some off the table and life becomes easier. And along with that, give yourself permission to be ok with only doing as much as you can do.

The point is that individual conservation is great, but ...ultimately saving the world requires collective action. We should all be a bit more diligent about recycling, but only policy changes will really solve the problems.

I like you are that honest.
I kind of get sometimes somewhat annoyed at otherwise dear family members who make up a thousand and one reasons, why organic milk isn't really better than conventional milk and why cloth diapers are not better for the environment and so on, when the real reason for their decision is that they are too stingy to spent the extra buck and too lazy to load their washing mashine twice more a week. Same family members also complain quite a bit about destruction of narural areas, loss of species and so on.
Now, I have to admit, that many of the decisions I initially made out of moral reasons, e.g. only drinking organic dairy and using cloth diapers, had also quite nice side effects, since in IMPO organic valley milk tastes way better than anything else on the market I have tried so far, and using cloth diapers saved me at least $1000 so far, which I can spend on yummy organic milk and other food. Come to think of it, there were very few moral decisions I made, which in the long run didn't bring some positive side effects - apart from making donations, maybe.

A really excellent post. I don't know what to say; I could explain the things that I do for economic justice and the environment and explain why I don't do the things that I don't do, but it feels too much like I'm trying to justify myself. So I'll just let myself be challenged by this. But I wanted to say that it is a really good essay.

I don't get the concerns about "cultural appropriation" involved in yoga either. Maybe it was a joke? Or am I supposed to be worried now about whether my love for tacos is confusing the cultural identity of our good neighbors from south of the border?

But an observation: the laughably meager steps practically 100% of us take in support of our beliefs is the main thing I think gives the lie to the claim that millions and millions of Americans are Christians. In what sense, I think it is fair to ask a confessor of the faith, have you given up "the world" for God? Sold everything for the proverbial field with the treasure in it? How is it that the world hates you because you're not part of it? I think anyone truly trying to be like Jesus would be an utter extremist, considered a bizarre cultist by others - not just a really, really loving person otherwise like you. And certainly not anyone ambivalent or simply "without enough time" to wage single-minded war on the sin of the world.

I can think of a scant few families I've met in my life - all missionaries to various exotic lands, serving without hope of renumeration, using up their earning years working essentially for free - that might qualify as literal "Followers of Christ" under a nondelusional rubric. Everyone else I've met seems as obviously un-Christian as your typical Wahhabist walking down the streets of Mecca.

Ach, this is what it means to be part of the human race in any country. People are people everywhere in the world, everywhere in time. It's not just a question of the 'me' generation, or any other generation; there's been no time in history where people behaved better than they do now.

Anyway, for my part, glancing around the room, the only thing made in America are probably the cigarettes; RJ Reynolds, at least, buys American all the way through. If you want to support American industry, smoke.

Speaking of political, this is a bit off-topic but has been bothering me for weeks: My office is heavily advertising their Women's Equality Day events. I've not heard of Women's Equality Day before, but I think it's an excellent idea.

Except for one problem... am I the only person bothered by the fact that this celebration of the achievements of feminism and exhortation to continue the fight is called WED?

I think a lot of what you describe is similar to how a lot of the folks I go to Alanon (and myself) feel about ourselves. It's like, I hold myself to this very high standard, and if I fail to meet that standard, then I start to berate myself for missing the mark. For example, I realized that I had a LOT less in my bank account then I had thought, yesterday. Instead of going, "well, I make 30k a year, and live in an expensive city, and pay 300 dollars a month in student loan payments. I'm not doing THAT bad and get paid tomorrow, though maybe it IS time to look at creating a budget," my mind went into a downward spiral of "Ah! Did you NEED to go out with the rugby team for 35 cent wings the other night? How about picking up that used copy of Persuasion? SEE You CAN'T handle money! You're former landlord was right in that you are a horrible irresponsible person who doesn't know how to act like an adult!"

It took a lot to get out of that. I wonder if this is something similar. I mean, you're making a lot of little choices and doing what you can. When everyone could do little things instead of going "I can't save all the whales RIGHT NOW, so there's no point!!" those little things add up. And, plus, it's nice that you have an idea of what you can and can't do. Quick story. I was in a starbucks and a lady put her glass bottle on the counter next to the trash can. I thought for a bit, and then politely informed her that the Starbucks here don't recycle, so if she wants to recycle the bottle, here isn't a good place. She gave me the Look, and told me that she was just going to leave it there, "just in case anyone wants to recycle it." I rolled my eyes and bit my tongue to stop myself from telling her that making it someone else's problem and patting herself on the back for being so "eco-friendly" is just sad. I'm willing to bet the barista who had to pick up her bottle felt the same way.

Lastly, from what I can tell, Hatha Yoga, as a form of exercise, is a relatively modern and Western thing.

Not saving the world ecologically speaking but in talking to our neighbours I realize that our community has had a fairly uniform response to the closing of a plant. Many of the people who worked at the plant had side-businesses (trimming trees, removing stumps, carpentry -- it is the type of area where almost every family has only a few degrees of separation from farming/hunting.)

This is the time of year when people do work on their homes/yards and most homeowners who need maintenance work done are making a positive effort to hire workers who have lost their plant jobs. It is word of mouth....instead of going to the internet or the phone book you ask around, get someone's name and phone hir at home. Even local businesses are making referrals to individuals (btw, you know how much wood there is when you take down at 45 foot/13-1/2 metre tree?)

Also, there seems to be some strange relationship between some men and their chain-saws. One of those guys had a chain-saw that was longer than I am tall and oh FSM was he having fun up in that tree. Every bit of the tree that could be recycled was -- wood for burning/chips for mulch/leaves small branches for composting -- and they were planning on going hunting together as soon as the job was done.

@Froborr: I think it's more complicated than that. Given that there will always be people who act irresponsibly, the people interested in helping save the world need to do considerably more than their fair share.

Mmy, I don't know if you've read anything by Anne Bishop, but while I can't stand her latest books in the Black Jewels world, there is a cute scene where . . . um, Saetan (yes) instructs a young man to direct his anger and magic into, basically, blowing up a bunch of firewood, and containing the damage so that it creates a nice wood mulch. Apparently, he does this with hordes of angry and frustrated teens who come to foster/study with him. Another character, later, comments on how she always loved the rich woody mulch Saetan's groundskeeper used in his gardens and wondered where she could get some.

An excellent point, Rowen. Saving the world is a daunting task. Saving .03 square miles seems a bit more manageable. And if everyone in the world saved .03 square miles...

You would save every square mile of land on Earth about 4 times over (Earth's land area is about 57 million square miles, and this would save 210 million square miles, counting all 7 billion people on Earth). I have to admit I was kinda surprised by this--most of the time, when you see "small thing that, if everyone would do it, would be big" it turns out not to be the case, really. There are usually more efficient bigger things you could do.

@Giles: I think if you put it as "save your favorite .03 square miles," most people would willingly do it. But let's say only a third do it... does saving .1 square miles really sound that difficult?

@truth is life: I was including the oceans, and calculated based on 6 billion people. But yeah, it's definitely a case where individual action *can* add up.

But a point in favor of the top-down approach: If our civilization as a whole were sustainable, there'd be breathing room for individual luxuries. You could take that extra-long shower without guilt, secure in the knowledge that your neighbor (who runs hir air conditioner a little on the cold side, but that's okay because your neighbor on the other side doesn't use zie's at all) takes short showers that make up the difference.

As a former Houstonian, I would normally agree with you, but up here in NYC, everyone uses little window a/c units that, basically, create a cold spot RIGHT in front of the unit, and make the rest of the apartment stuffy and unbearable. If I can, I just open all the windows to get the air flow and put a fan where it can hit me. Not only is it more cost effective, but I don't feel so sick.

With two exceptions--college and the year I spent in DC--I don't think I've ever really used air conditioning. Partly that's because I grew up in New York and Massachusetts, and while it does get hot, it doesn't really merit air conditioning. At least not central air.

In DC, I shared an a/c unit with one other room--we had a little vestibule that connected our rooms, so we had a unit in one of those windows.

I don't even have a window unit now, though I probably could have used one this summer. My roommate has a window unit that she uses sparingly, so when it gets too hot, I'll camp out on her floor. I did that for, like, two weeks last summer when it got really bad. I have a ceiling fan and a box fan.

I used those examples because they were the first that came to mind. Note that I said "runs the air conditioning a little on the cold side," not "runs the air conditioning at all." If it's 110 outside, you probably do need air conditioning, but there's a difference between setting it to 75 vs. setting it to 55.

Frankly, I don't see "cultural appropriation" as something to feel guilty about. It's what human beings do when at peace with each other (and sometimes when not at peace)--cherry-pick the interesting new ideas from "those other guys". Art, literature and music would be poor, pathetic shadows of themselves without constant cross-fertilization from other cultures.

You can't stop it without demonizing the other culture. The alternative is language purity ministries, segregation, apartheid, pogroms, fun stuff like that. No thanks. I'd rather celebrate "cultural appropriation" (or assimilation) as one of the better sides of human behavior.

@Dragoness: While my inclination is to agree, cultural appropriation isn't about trade between cultures on an equal footing. (American Doctor Who fandom is not cultural appropriation.) Consider if you were part of a conquered people, and the conquerers started performing one of your religious ceremonies because it was good exercise, while stripping it of all spiritual significance? Mightn't you be rather miffed about that?

@Froborr: 55 in a house? Too cold! (Though my parents had this thing about not turning on the heat til the end of November, so the house would sometimes be that cold. We had an abundance of sweaters and blankets.)

Consider if you were part of a conquered people, and the conquerers started performing one of your religious ceremonies because it was good exercise, while stripping it of all spiritual significance? Mightn't you be rather miffed about that?

The difficulty (for MercuryBlue, at least, who I am pretty sure is American) is that America never conquered India, in fact never really had much to do with India. It's one of the few not-European places where that is true, actually; the area was so sewn up by the British, and relatively little happened there in the post-independence era (yes, the US supported Pakistan militarily, but our relationship with India was somewhat more ambiguous than "enemy of our friend") that the US never really got deeply involved there. It probably helped that Congress was not particularly friendly either to the United States or the Soviet Union, mostly due to ideology, so they avoided getting very deeply caught up in the Cold War.

Anyways, no, I wouldn't be particularly miffed about that, anymore than I am miffed about, say, Christian-influenced syncretic religions, which often seem to have little to do with Christianity. Furthermore, since Indian cultural and religious traditions (and here I'd like to pause to point out that "India" is basically as big and diverse as most of what we call "Europe") have historically been extremely influential and often exported into nearby cultures (sometimes supplanting native traditions), and equally often highly modified to fit into local cultures and traditions (eg., Buddhism), it seems questionable to complain about another group which (in the case of Americans) have had little historically to do with India at all doing so. If anything, it is simply a testament to the influence of Indian cultures even under adverse conditions.

I'd like to point out again that what we in the West(ish) refer to as "yoga" isn't a 5000 year old tradition, and is less then 200 years old, more or less codified in the 60's by a man who's still alive. So, the white American doing yoga isn't exactly participating in a long tradition of making the baby Buddha cry, so I say don't let that get in the way. Physical limitations are an entirely different story, though (I do like the way the first article basically says, if you're knee hurts, stop.) That isn't to say it isn't still a good form of exercise and possible meditation (one of the articles pointed out that many of the poses come from a Indian gymnastics training manual that was designed to improve strength and flexibility)

Consider if you were part of a conquered people, and the conquerers started performing one of your religious ceremonies because it was good exercise, while stripping it of all spiritual significance? Mightn't you be rather miffed about that?

@Dragoness Eclectic: Well, it comes down to the toe-stepping rule: If I am standing on your foot, and you ask me to get off, I better have a damn good reason if I don't. It gets very complicated, very quickly.

Personally, I tend to regard such things on a case-by-case basis. First of all, if nobody's complaining (and I've never heard of anyone complaining about yoga as being imperialistic), it's not a problem. If someone *is* complaining, well... if you can make someone else feel better at no cost to yourself, and you don't, you're a jerk. On the other hand, if you're demanding that people give up things they like just because you feel a proprietary sense of ownership over them... you're a jerk.

It's not really a situation where a good overall answer is available. I think it's one where each person just has to do what seems best to them.

I used those examples because they were the first that came to mind. Note that I said "runs the air conditioning a little on the cold side," not "runs the air conditioning at all." If it's 110 outside, you probably do need air conditioning, but there's a difference between setting it to 75 vs. setting it to 55.

Well, I was making a wry comment about the realities of living in a place where (so my computer helpfully informs me) it can be 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit (feels like 108.4) and not be particularly unusual. Also, thinking about the "your neighbor on the other side doesn't use zie's at all" part.

I think what we're talking about, with yoga, unless someone on this thread IS Indian, is more of a "What if I'm stepping on someone's foot?!" and not looking down to see if you really are.

That's just with yoga and Mercury Blue's reaction, though. I do realize that there are situations that this IS a matter of stepping on someone's foot (see: Ke$ha and her headdress or the most recent VMA winner and large swathes of the gay community).

Seriously, I mentioned the Olympic Games because that was the only historical example I could think of someone's sacred rituals (sacred funeral games, which in that culture evolved into sacred athletic games w/o funerals involved) being used for athletics/exercise. After seeing that yoga had been debunked as not being a case of cultural appropriation. Religious ritual and exercise are one of those combinations you just don't see very often, like fish & jello.

However, in the more general case, the problem with borrowing someone's sacred rites for secular uses isn't that it's cultural appropriation--it's that it is often offensive in itself, no matter whose culture it's from. In many times and places, the abuse of sacred rituals was considered blasphemy, and punishable. In places and times that don't have blasphemy laws (like the 21st U.S.A.), it's just rather rude.

On the other hand, humanity has a long, long history of borrowing each other's gods and religious rituals and incorporating into their own sacred rituals. Christmas and Easter are quite full of well-known examples of Christians assimilating local pagan rituals into their own. Ancient Greeks and Romans borrowed heavily from Egyptian religion, making their own hybrid mystery cults. if I knew much about Far Eastern religion, I could probably point to examples there--I will note that Buddhism as taught by Siddhartha did not include several major Chinese dieties thinly assimilated as bodhisatvas.

Okay, I'm late to the party, but in reviewing the last few comments there's a few things I'd like to throw in.

First of all, India suffered from colonialism from the West. Whether it was the British or the Americans, it was white Western colonialism, particularly of the English-speaking variety. Different configuration of the red white and blue stripes is not a get-out-of-responsibility-free card. Second, an argument _has_ been made by someone from the originating culture that yoga is cultural appropriation, or at least certain forms of it - specifically, that "There is no Christian yoga." The author concludes:

One does need to be Hindu to practice yoga, but it is clear from historical evidence that Yoga comes from Hinduism.

So this is not the product of a bunch of white people sitting around and thinking up things to be guilty about. This is a genuine concern, although what with the way this author puts the statement and the way yoga has evolved over the last 200 years, I don't think that practicing yoga per se is cultural appropriation, or is unlikely to be terribly harmful as such.

Whether something sacred is appropriated for sacred or secular purposes (and I can think of lots of holidays and religious observances that have been borrowed and/or desacralized), if the borrower is doing it without understanding, and perhaps permission or cooperation from the borrowee, it's more likely to be problematic appropriation. Of course these things change over time as one or both populations disappears, as sentiments and relationships change, and more.

About religion and exercise: what MB said. See also: Mevlevi Order (Sufi). For bonus examples of religion and physical exertion: Lunasa (pre-Christian Celtic), maypoles (pre-Christian European), many Greek practices besides the Olympics, Christian pilgrimages, Stations of the Cross, genuflection (especially in repetitive form), not to mention the idea of work as a form of prayer...the list goes on.

Finally, Dragoness Eclectic, that's nice that you think cultural appropriation is borrowing and inspiration and not an insult or a source of harm, but I'm going to stick with the rule of thumb that "It's more complicated than that."

What I don't follow is why anyone should feel the slightest twinge of guilt for going to a yoga class, or how yoga classes are veiled racism.
That strikes me as being similar to saying that we can't drink tea because the British once got all the Chinese addicted to opium in exchange for tea, and then blew the hell out of their cities when the Chinese tried to resist. Except that you didn't give a reason why I should feel bad about yoga.

So for tea, what happened was terrible, and America didn't treat the Chinese any better. But we can't change it, so why worry about it now? With billions of people drinking tea, the more pressing concern is what impact tea cultivation is having on the environment.

And yeah, cultural appropriation can be inappropriate (I've met a few white racists who listen to R&B and hip hop, for instance).
I simply don't see how yoga classes are at all comparable.

You know, after her trip to South Africa, my mother gave me a dashiki. It's the only hand-made clothing I have, very comfortable despite the coarseness of the fabric, and looks very good on me, plus it has nice deep pockets.

I've never worn it out of the house, because I'm afraid fishbelly-white guy in a dashiki might send the wrong, and very offensive, message.

On the other hand... if you have a traditional white wedding between two men or two women, isn't that cultural appropriation highly offensive to the traditional guardians of that culture? I have no qualms about telling said cultural guardians to get bent, not because of their relatively privileged position, nor because they're wrong--white weddings were originally performed only between heterosexual couples--but because the pain caused by preventing couples from marrying is too great.

But then on the other other hand, following that principle too far leads to Whiniest Person Wins, which seems obviously wrong.

Definitely an interesting article. I've often felt frustrated about "not doing enough" to solve the world's problems-- never mind the fact that no matter how much I did, it still wouldn't feel like "enough".

Rowen, I really hear you about the impossible standards thing. Here in America (or at least in the Northwest among people I talk to) there seems to be a general perception that you aren't really being socially/environmentally responsible unless you're making gigantic sacrifices; it's like whatever you're doing doesn't count at all if you still have an average American lifestyle.

I think this is a false perception, and leads to people not doing the little things they can do because it doesn't feel like they matter. (In some people it also leads to ranting about "those environmentalists trying to take away my whole entire lifestyle" because a call for greater responsibility feels like a call for total responsibility... but that's a different topic.)

I don't know if we industrialized-nations people can ever really do enough to balance our impact on the world, but we can at least step a bit more lightly on the scales, so to speak. Making one consciously responsible choice, no matter how small, is better than cynically doing nothing. We can never be perfect, but we can always be a little bit better. Inadequate as it may feel, it's still better than nothing.

A moment of insight for me was realizing that it does *more good* (environmentally speaking) for twenty people to cut their meat consumption in half than for one person to become a vegetarian and the other nineteen, unwilling to make that sacrifice, to do nothing. So I try to find the sacrifices or changes I am willing to make, and not fret about those I'm not willing to make.

It's also important to tally up the costs *to you* of making a particular change, which may not be the same as they would be for someone else. I can go car-free pretty happily due to details of where I live, what I do, and who I know. For someone else it might be hellish. Conversely, I know that while those buy-a-share veggie programs are abstractly a great thing, they will just lead to guilt and rotten veggies if I do them, so I don't.

Excellent post, MercuryBlue. I was all set to call it my favourite post ever on the relationship between the political and the personal until I remembered the inimitable IOZ's Personal/Political (http://whoisioz.blogspot.com/2008/03/personalpolitical.html, seriously, read it.) But yeah, this is easily my second favourite post on the topic, which says a lot given how much I read about this issue.

I'm not sure I have a right to care, there,

Can I just say that this is totally wrong; that you do have a right to care. Although the system that slowly grinds you down can make it incredibly difficult for you to change anything, you don't have to let it take away your humanity as well. Also: what MaryKaye said.

J. Enigma, are you seriously blaming people for the fact that politicians are corrupt? Nothing we can do is going to stop power from corrupting people, or corrupt people from seeking power.

What I don't follow is why anyone should feel the slightest twinge of guilt for going to a yoga class, or how yoga classes are veiled racism.

From Wiki:

Yoga (Sanskrit, Pāli: योग yóga) is a physical, mental, and spiritual discipline, originating in ancient India,[1][2] whose goal is the attainment of a state of perfect spiritual insight and tranquility.[3] The word is associated with meditative practices in Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism.[4][5][6].

As Froborr said, to Indians, yoga is a religious practice. To me, it's exercise. There might be a slight problem there. Various commenters make valid points that I shouldn't worry, but I can't help worrying. It's genetic.

Second, if you want to do incorporate some of the stretches/poses of yoga into your own exercise routine, fine. When you start calling it yóga or thinking that you are actually practicing yóga then it is, even more than cultural appropriation, an insult. What you are doing is a pale pastiche of the real thing and by giving it the same name you are diminishing (and dismissing) much of its meaning.

Third, your statement That strikes me as being similar to saying that we can't drink tea because the British once got all the Chinese addicted to opium in exchange for tea, and then blew the hell out of their cities when the Chinese tried to resist. Except that you didn't give a reason why I should feel bad about yoga. showed such a meager and dismissive understanding of the opium wars (and of the introduction of tea to Britain) that it suggests that you have no desire to actually understand the underlying issues.

Fourth, a good part of the history of modern wester yóga has roots in that "wonderful" era of cultural appropriation in the 1960s and 1970s when westerners (often rock stars) mined other cultures for clothes, music, and religion.

And yeah, cultural appropriation can be inappropriate (I've met a few white racists who listen to R&B and hip hop, for instance).
I simply don't see how yoga classes are at all comparable.

Cultural appropriation is not inappropriate in the sense that using the wrong fork at dinner is inappropriate -- it is part of the process of cultural genocide in which one culture destroys the very intellectual and spiritual underpinnings of another culture by colonizing their minds and imaginations just as it has colonized their country.

I suggest that you hie yourself off to a library and get every book you can find by Ariel Dorfman before weighing in on the subject again. [Particularly How to read Donald Duck and The Empire's Old Clothes)

Ahhh. I loved this piece. I'm going to talk about the beauty standards part, though, because it seems like the cultural appropriation/environmentalism aspects have already talked about. And besides, the beauty standards part is closer to the top of my mind right now....

I literally don't even know how to wear makeup. I do own some mascara, but because I don't own anything to remove it with (or even know the name of that product), I wear it maybe once a year.

I also had this thing about buying stuff, especially clothes... it freaks me out, also I freeze up from the options, and from the annoyance when multiple things I try don't fit/seem to look weird to me. (but weird, might just be unfamiliar) So my wardrobe has been mostly just crew cut t-shirts and jeans. Then there also is the fundamentalist fallout and the fact that I got through some seriously stressful situations by just not thinking about clothing much and wearing things that would make me 'invisible' even in a fundamentalist social circle.

AAANNNNDD. I got dumped this summer. I'd been in this relationship for four years, and I was doing ok with the idea that it would have to be over, that he just wasn't ready for commitment, that we got together too young and he needed more experiences to test where he was in the world and who he wanted to be with. He explained he was "restless" and while that hurt, I've been restless before, and figured I could understand-- he needed freedom to be with other people.

And then.....

He started telling me *why* he thinks he was restless. That it was because of my attitude towards fashion and personal appearance... that was the "dealbreaker." WTF 4 years and you'd think he'd have noticed I wore lots of t-shirts before then. But.... it still was seriously influential on my thinking. I still am thinking about it lots. It also didn't help that he tried to sell it by saying it would be necessary to get a 'decent' job and I reacted quite badly to the assumption that the kinds of jobs that care about clothing to that extent are equal to the kinds of jobs that are 'decent,' or that salary or money earned should be the main thing to judge between job options, and so opting not to have an expensive suit (the conversation went on for a long time) to fit in would cost me all the "good" job openings.

And the weird thing is.... now I AM interested in trying to present more "femme" now that I'm single. And I'm trying to parse out why that is.

Is it because I no longer have a standard against which to judge, where with every outfit I'm basically asking "did I pass muster yet? Am I doing Girl right?" for any particular other person, but just having fun myself? Was it my stubbornness keeping me from doing what he told me to simply because he told me to? Was perhaps my aversion to clothes shopping abated after a few years out of fundamentalism and I just hadn't noticed from being too busy with grad school, since now when I shop (last couple months) I'm usually ok? So could I have done that earlier and still been with him? Would I even WANT to?

And if I DO change my presentation... does that mean I'd be attracting shallow men in the future? And seriously... beauty work isn't trivial, it's not "easy" or "natural" or "instinctive" and since I haven't learned SO MUCH of it... it will be a rather large investment in time, energy, money, and stuff that doesn't work before I figure out what does. Is that worth the environmental/financial cost? Esp. since I mostly have gotten along without it? But if I want to play with different personal presentations... shouldn't I feel ok about buying things even if it increases the amount of things I throw away, or that might have been tested on animals, whatever?

Ugh. I guess back to talking about things that aren't strictly beauty standards.

Or... is it because he's shaken me so much to the core that I am "wanting to explore being more femme" because on some level I think he is RIGHT? And my protestations to the contrary are just rationalizations trying to make me feel better about now being required to master a whole new world of tasks in order to earn love?

Because "or you can't have love" is a pretty strong emotional threat... and I could be doing all sorts of weird things with that idea just below my conscious psychology....

Or I guess it could just be a giant "F you" I want to send him, you think I'm not pretty enough? SEE THIS.

I love, love, love the food at Chick-Fil-A, but I will no longer eat there. The day I found out that they give money to Focus on the Family was when I ate my last Chick-Fil-A sandwich ever. I miss it.

Also there is a rather famous local BBQ place near me which I would like to frequent (and did frequent when I was younger) but the owner is extremely racist and flies the Confederate battle flag, so I don't go there.

@Jason: I found myself in a quandary as to what to do when I began to follow Fred's deconstruction of Left Behind since I did not want the authors to get a cent of royalty money from me.

So I kept my eye open at library sales and found (very easily) the entire series. Was able to get them (all) for less than 5 dollars. Which went to the libraries in question. And when I paid for them I told the librarians why I was buying them. And gave the library a donation on top of that.

BTW, there are some books which seem to turn up with great regularity at library book sales. You could always find volume after volume of Left Behind books most of them in unbelievably good condition and many seemed not to even have been opened before I got them home.

jemand, it is entirely possible that you could have dressed like a cover model for Vogue, and he still would have walked, and the conversation you had would have been about how he was restless because you were so incredibly shallow. We don't always understand our own motivations, and have to use the same procedure for guessing at why we're doing what we're doing as we use for guessing other people's motives, with about the same results. I think the general rule is, though, when you're leaving a relationship is the time you lose the power to put constraints on the other person's behavior, not gain it.

It's funny that you are experiencing "wanting to explore being more femme" in reaction to a big transition in your life, because I am experiencing the same thing since I retired. I've spent a lot more money on clothes in the last eight months than my new situation in life or my budget warrants. The last time I experienced something similar was when my first marriage broke up. So maybe this is a transition thing. Something in your life is changing and it's opening you up to the possibility of more changes. You might experiment with them, not like them, and go back to T-shirts. Or something might stick. Or something might stick for a few years and then you go back to T-shirts or onto something else.

If it's any help, I have a rule for buying clothing. If I try it on, look at myself in the mirror, and my face breaks into a big smile, it's a keeper. If I'm standing there thinking, "Yeah, but I need a white shirt and this one fits" or "stripes are in this year" or "but it's only $X", then it's not.

[[Karen: Love this. I don't even try to do my best anymore; it's too exhausting. I give myself points for buying LEGO, Erector Sets, and video games at the local toy stores instead of Wal-Mart. Also, I buy toilet paper at Costco. I'm still Part of the Problem.]]

I can understand this. I have it slightly easier, I think, because I live in the city, but even that--there are farmer's markets that I should go to but don't frequent. There's a co-op southeast of my house, but it's a hike when you don't own a car. So on and so forth. Sometimes I feel like my little gestures (using public transit, not having AC, having a garden) are just beating uselessly at the big picture.

[[jemand: And seriously... beauty work isn't trivial, it's not "easy" or "natural" or "instinctive" and since I haven't learned SO MUCH of it... it will be a rather large investment in time, energy, money, and stuff that doesn't work before I figure out what does.]]

Yeah, I feel you there. I don't really wear make-up, except for foundation to cover the blotchiness and blemishes. Putting anything on my eyes is pretty much out of the question: I wear glasses, and my vision is so bad that if I tried to put on eye make-up, I'd probably poke myself in the eye.

On doing "girl" right--obviously, there's not just one way to do girl, but I struggle with this too. I cut off most of my hair about three years ago, and once in a while people will tell me that I look like Harry Potter (or Peter Pan, but, hey, Peter Pan's often played by a woman). Seriously. I was on the train once, and these two teenage boys kept asking me if I was Harry Potter's sister--and then proceeded to call "Harry Potter!" at me for the rest of the ride. (I told them that I had little brothers who were just as bad as them. Of course, my little brothers are now in their 20s, but whatever.)

Sorry, that was a tangent...I feel like changing your presentation should be something you do because you want to (and maybe that's an obvious piece of advice). In college, I was sorta hippie-scrubby, lots of baggy pants and my mom's old EMS vest and bandannas over my hair, which was down to my waist. That's changed over the years, although I do still own lots of t-shirts. But my presentation changes depending on the day--for work it's one thing, at home it's another, with friends it's another. I work at a college and we're really casual. I wear jeans to work, but I also wear nice shirts.

Growing up, I think I spent a lot of time being the tomboy, especially in high school when my friends were all pairing up. I kinda felt like I needed to fit in somewhere, so I ended up being the girl who could play sports decently, who didn't really care much about guys, who could be everyone's little sister and no one's girlfriend. It's stuck with me a lot, that sort of persona, and I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

[-], this is off topic, but do you mind saying where in Hungary you live? My former foreign exchange student (well, one of the five) is from Eger and is finishing up college in Szeged. We've visited her in Hungary twice. It's a beautiful country.

She's studying to be a physiotherapist, or physical therapist as we say here in the states. And yes, it is a small world. Two people that I "met" on message boards turned out to go to the same church I did.

I was playing online in a text-based game of Nomic and one of the other players needed to fake up a postal letter. I looked at the address of the faked letter and thought, "Whoa, that's on my street." I walked down and leaned over the fence, and sure enough, another Nomic fan.

This was a highly international game, though admittedly favoring English-speaking countries. I know we had players in the US, Canada, England and Australia. Maybe 50 players total. What are the odds that two of them live a block apart?!

I've gotten very feminine in my clothing lately (partly because of the boyfriend), and discovered this morning that I own EIGHT pairs of jeans I haven't worn in months (and two pairs I have). The op-shop is getting a rather large jeans donation today...

I love wearing skirts, and doing pretty things with my hair, and funky jewellery, and perfume. It's awesome. I have to say, though - part of it is because no-one thinks I should be dressed in a certain way. If I caught the least whiff of people expecting me to dress in an ultra-feminine way, I'd probably go straight back to jeans and trackie-daks.

I never really wear makeup, though. It's uncomfortable and smudgy, and I don't see much point.

I do own some mascara, but because I don't own anything to remove it with (or even know the name of that product), I wear it maybe once a year.

THROW IT OUT. Please. Immediately.

Mascara should NEVER be kept for more than three months. It is a terrific breeding ground for all sorts of nasty bacteria and you are putting this stuff on your eyes.

I mentioned over on the other thread that different names I use, dress differently, and degree of "feminine presentation" is a big part of that. Professional-me never wears make-up, but one of the me's does, and I keep it around just for her. (But not mascara. Seriously)